Eduard Bernstein

Eduard Bernstein (6 January 1850-18 December 1932) was a German SPD politician who is considered to be the father of democratic soicalism and social democracy. Bernstein rejected Marxism's theory of social revolution in favor of reforming capitalism to the benefit of the working classes.

Biography
Eduard Bernstein was born in Schoeneberg, Prussia on 6 January 1850 to a family of German Jews, and he worked as a bank clerk. He joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1872 and became the head of the party newspaper in 1881. He co-authored the party's Erfurt Program, and he published Die Voraussetzung des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie in 1899, outlining the nature of social democracy. He rejected the SPD's traditional goal of revolution, favoring a pragmatic approach which aimed at the reform of the current capitalist system to the immediate benefit of the working classes. He was an MP from 1902 to 1906, from 1912 to 1918, and from 1920 to 1928, and he was influential in the party's transformation from the ideals of Marxism to an acceptance of the German Empire. After 1918, he endorsed the Weimar Republic, and he died in 1932.